"Let me add, that it is the great desideratum, by which this form of Government can be rescued from the opprobrium under which it has so long labored, and be recommended to the esteem and adoption of mankind." Federalist 10, James Madison

Translate

Friday, May 27, 2011

Waiting for the Revolution...

Just some of the business space for rent, sale, or lease in and around downtown Bellingham.

"Though national economists have declared a technical end to the deep recession that has plagued our country since at least 2008, we would be hard-pressed to find many in the local economy who feel that is true, based on the continuing financial pressures in their lives and businesses. " Mayor Dan Pike from 2011 Budget Message

They say we have hit another "soft patch" (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) - too many disasters, too little GDP, too much unemployment and under-employment, abysmal housing stats. Productivity is up, Corporate profits, savings and earnings (in some cases) are sky high but...small businesses and families are collapsing in city after city across middle America. Residential construction activity levels are some slight level above rigor mortis.

It can't go on like this forever. At some point we will either have to:

acknowledge a permanent change in our socio-economic fabric

have a recovery

throw a Marxist revolution

I came across an OECD chart that sums up how the Western world got to this dark place. Unions may not always be the correct solution, but they made the small business economy work by driving wealth into the hands of consumers, who promptly recycled it into the main street economy. They are not doing that now.

This is despite over $139 million in 262 separate recovery spending awards for Whatcom County alone to date. Our official Whatcom County employment rate is 10%. But this hides, as it does for the rest of the nation, a nearly calamitous fall in employment participation numbers.